Gwangju Presente!
Posted on May 17, 2020 by Tim Shorrock

May 18 marks the 40th anniversary of the Gwangju Massacre and Uprising, which shook the foundations of South Korea in 1980 and marked the beginning of the country’s long march towards democracy.

Kwangju Declassified/PDFs of key documents

Here are some of the key FOIA documents I obtained between 1994 and 2006. More will be added as I download them.

WASHINGTON – Two former South Korean presidents charged with treason, mutiny and corruption entered a Seoul courtroom this week to begin what could be the most important political trial in modern Asian history.

Chun Doo Hwan and Roh Tae Woo stand accused of staging a rolling coup in 1979 and 1980, sending troops into the southwestern city of Kwangju in May 1980 to quell pro-democracy demonstrations in an action that resulted in the massacre of some 240 people and accepting millions of dollars in bribes from Korean corporations in the decade they held power...

...According to the newly declassified U.S. government documents:

* Senior officials in the Carter administration, fearing that chaos in South Korea could unravel a vital military ally and possibly tempt North Korea to intervene, approved Mr. Chun’s plans to use military units against the huge student demonstrations that rocked Korean cities in the spring of 1980.

* Two of the key decision-makers at the time were Warren Christopher, President Clinton’s secretary of state, and Richard C. Holbrooke, who retired last week as the Clinton administration’s chief negotiator on Bosnia to join the New York investment banking firm of CS First Boston. Mr. Christopher was deputy secretary of state in 1980 and Mr. Holbrooke, who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in Bosnia, was assistant secretary of state of East Asian and Pacific affairs.